athenahealth to acquire Epocrates for $293 million

athenahealth has announced a signed agreement to acquire mobile health pioneer, Epocrates, widely recognized for developing the #1 medical mobile application among US physicians for clinical content. Epocrates is used and trusted by more than one million health care professionals, including 50 percent of all US physicians. This acquisition merges Epocrates' mobile expertise with athenahealth's Best in KLAS cloud-based services to reimagine and redefine mobile workflows and information access at the point of care.

The Epocrates acquisition will enable athenahealth to realize its vision in a number of key ways:

• Better Information Access for Health Organizations — By combining Epocrates’ mobile expertise with knowledge and data from athenahealth’s cloud-based network, the combined company will be uniquely positioned to introduce new mobile applications that deliver high-value information to the clinical community when, where, and how they want it.
• Advanced Mobile Workflows — the combined company will seek to pioneer new mobile workflows to improve provider efficiency and support care delivery outcomes; initial efforts will focus on care coordination, provider-to-provider communication, and patient engagement tools.
• Accelerated Awareness and Growth Across the Physician Market — athenahealth would expand its current provider base of 38,000 to include the more than one million health care professionals on the Epocrates network, allowing athenahealth to build upon the highly favored Epocrates brand, recognized today by approximately 90 percent of practicing U.S. physicians.

You can read the full press release here.